It's felony murder so when you conspire with someone to commit a felony and your co-conspirator is killed by the convenience store owner you're robbing that gets you a murder charge. It's used by such repressive regimes as the state of California.

The problem is that the remaining miners are being charged with the death of the 34 killed by the cops.

We're not saying the remaining miners shouldn't be charged with something, depending on how they participated in the protest. We are saying they shouldn't be charged with killing 34 people they didn't kill.

The politically connected and super rich owner of the platinum mine would like everyone to forget these distractions. What's important is that the mine gets back to work. Don't make him send his publicly funded but privately controlled police force in to kill more lazy workers. And you really don't want to piss off his judge - he's paid that guy more "donations" than those workers have seen in years... collectively.

rdu_voyager:The problem is that the remaining miners are being charged with the death of the 34 killed by the cops.

The *actual* problem is that in this particular action they weren't "miners". They were there to represent one of two trade unions in open war and the death toll would have been far higher had the cops simply walked away.

Make no mistake. They were there to butcher each other. This was a power play by union bosses looking to secure themselves some union fees and had very little to do with improving the miner's working environment.

The problem is drivel being passed off as "reporting" to an uncritical public.

I ask this in all seriousness, but why do democracy and the idea of human rights seem to work in so few places? in what little history that I remember this early in the morning, it seems to have taken in Europe (and European cultures) and that's about it. I don't know, what am I missing here?

Sure is interesting. When the Apartheid Government of South Africa gunned down people like this, it was news all over the world for weeks. When the Wall St. government of South Africa does the same, it's one big collective yawn from the "journalists".

Fact is this entire mess was orchestrated by Wall St. The recent collapse in global auto sales was about to cause the the price of platinum to nosedive......the auto industry is the largest consumer of platinum, it's used in catalytic converters. Since the platinum mine "troubles", the price of platinum is on the rise again due to "supply fears". It's Wall St that should be arrested for these murders.

The miners are being charged under 'common purpose' - which is similar to laws elsewhere; when one suspect involved in an incident is armed, and is killed by police during the incident, any other parties involved in the incident can be charged with murder. As noted upthread, this is hardly an uncommon legal move.

That said, given the publicity this incident has received, and the general ridiculousness of charging 250 people in this way, I'd expect the charge to quietly disappear. They're hardly short of other, entirely valid, charges.

You can (and I think most people would) argue that the indiscriminate firing into the crowd was over the top, given the situation the police were in. I suspect that the murder charges on the survivors is just a case of hurling the kitchen sink at them to make sure that something sticks.

ChubbyTiger:I ask this in all seriousness, but why do democracy and the idea of human rights seem to work in so few places? in what little history that I remember this early in the morning, it seems to have taken in Europe (and European cultures) and that's about it. I don't know, what am I missing here?

/and why does Swype have capitalization issues in mobile Firefox?

The real answer is very long, but I'll try to be as brief as possible.

Greed. Almost every political system can be brought down by greed. Heck, even a theocracy is good, until you get a greedy ahole in charge. Then he's sitting on a throne sipping wine from a solid gold chalice while the peasants break their backs to pay the church.

Democracy was supposed to put a stop to greedy aholes taking over the whole country. The leaders would be elected by the people, who could then throw them out if the leader performed badly. Still, a strong democracy is dependent on many things like public education (so the people are informed and educated enough to understand the relevant issues), and strong regulation (to prevent private individuals from taking advantage of their fellow citizens to the detriment of the country).

In many of these countries you're thinking of, there is no public education or regulation. The people can't even read a ballot (assuming an election is even held), and a handful of private individuals quickly grab up all the means of production, then dole out just enough feed to keep their workers from starving. Greed wrecks the whole deal.

ChubbyTiger:but why do democracy and the idea of human rights seem to work in so few places? in what little history that I remember this early in the morning, it seems to have taken in Europe (and European cultures) and that's about it. I don't know, what am I missing here?

You seem to be confusing "where it works" with "where people say it works properly".The democracy/human rights thing is almost always lip service when it comes down to it.

BTW, registered Republicans must really enjoy this video, there are more "likes" than "dislikes". If Romney gets elected, you can be sure "labor management" such as this will become the fashion in 'Murica.

Fissile:Sure is interesting. When the Apartheid Government of South Africa gunned down people like this, it was news all over the world for weeks. When the Wall St. government of South Africa does the same, it's one big collective yawn from the "journalists".

Fact is this entire mess was orchestrated by Wall St. The recent collapse in global auto sales was about to cause the the price of platinum to nosedive......the auto industry is the largest consumer of platinum, it's used in catalytic converters. Since the platinum mine "troubles", the price of platinum is on the rise again due to "supply fears". It's Wall St that should be arrested for these murders.

If someone dies while you commit a crime, that's considered murder. I don't see the problem here. I love bad-mouthing cops as much as the next guy, but this is really the wrong story to get your panties in a knot.

"Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed during the protests before the police shooting."

These people showed up with violent intentions. This was not a peaceful protest. They knew what they were getting into. When you put yourself in a situation like this, what do you think is going to happen? Conditions in that mine might have been horrible, but killing officers might not be the best way to handle it.